FOR TORONTOTHE SIGNAL IS CLEAR

KEEPING A LARGE CITY ORGANIZED

With nearly 2.5 million people in the City of Toronto, it is important for the TransportationServices Division to keep its trac signals running smoothly to minimize trac jams, alongwith keeping its citizens safe. To manage their trac signal assets, the city implementedCartGraphs SIGNALview.

GETTING STARTEDIn 1999, in preparation for the end of the world, better known as Y2K, Toronto wasgathering all of their information on their trac signals and trying to put it in one singledatabase. With a number of dierent groups maintaining their own databases and no singlesource of information, they created an Access database and began merging Excel spreadsheets and other information together. They selected SIGNALview with the anticipationof consolidating all data (drawings, photos, equipment lists, geographical coordinates,rmware references, communication costs, electrical costs, etc.) in one place and havingthe ability to report this information using a GIS.Before the city purchased 10 SIGNALview licenses, they spent time developing commonindices for the variety of data sources and developing references for the location of theequipment.

CarteGraph

Better Government

CarteGraphA CartGraph ChampionHtetH.Wunn is a Systems Integrator for the City ofTorontos TransportationServices Division and isdescribed by her supervisor as a SIGNALview Champion and aprimary factor behind the citys successful implementation of CartGraph.Having someone who is focused onthe success of the implementation isvery important, said Lisa Maasland,Senior Systems Engineer for Transportation Services. A focused person canmaintain the database, take care of theclients needs, create desired reports,know the ins and outs of the databaseand can modify the elds. Having oneperson track all of the data allows me torest easy, because I know she is doing itaccurately. Without one focused personwho is responsible for maintaining thedata, it can become a bit chaotic.Wunn is an important part of thecitys success. She handles all user issuesincluding installation, training and demos. She creates reports based on userrequirements, upgrades SIGNALviewto new CartGraph versions, modies forms and any associated VisualBasic software code based on user requirements. She reports diculties toCartGraph, administers the links usedby external software applicationswhichextract data from the SIGNALview Oracle databaseand maintains data integrity by resolving data information issues.She enters the signal asset data, updatesand maintains all associated ESRI datalayers, and compares data betweenSIGNALview, Oracle tables and associated ESRI data layers regularly.It is easy to see why Maasland feels afocused, driven individual like Wunn isimportant for their success with CartGraphs SIGNALview.

TRACKING YOUR SIGNALS

The City of Toronto knew that changes had to be made when simple requests from seniorsta, such as what was the exact number of operating signals in the city on a specic date, tookemployees nearly two hours to formulate an accurate reply. This was increasingly important asup to 40 new signals were being added to the network each year. Currently Toronto is operating2000 trac signals, along with 583 pedestrian crossovers and 364 beacons. With SIGNALviewthey can keep detailed asset information relating to trac signals, pedestrian crossovers andbeacons, generate accurate reports whenever required and plot information on city streetmaps.Besides knowing the actual number of signals, the city has been collecting all of the data on thehardware related to each signal. With this information, the city will be able to calculate the totalvalue of their trac control systems network. Another unique way Toronto uses SIGNALviewis to track the electric and telephone communication consumption of the trac network. Eachmonth, the city receives invoices from the electric supply and telephone companies showingconsumption for the signals; with SIGNALview, they can verify the actual use. On telephoneconsumption alone they saved close to $100,000 a year.

USING THE INTERNET WITH SIGNALview

With the increase of technology and the popularity of the internet, the City of Toronto hasincorporated several intranet and internet application links (URLs) into SIGNALview. Thisallows the user to access from SIGNALview, links to multiple sources of information related tothe selected SIGNALview record. The SIGNALview record number is automatically inserted inthe URL so that the next application is opened at the record of interest.The Transportation Signals group worked together with the group, Land Information Toronto,who designed an intranet GIS-based program to display trac signal locations together withother GIS-related information such as political boundaries, street addresses, aerial photos, etc.When this program is opened through SIGNALview, it automatically zooms into a close-upview of the selected SIGNALview record.Signal timings, digital photos, as well as the intersection engineering drawings are alsoautomatically located by URLs within SIGNALview. Instead of the user having to keep track ofrelated data locations, all of the le and application URLs are embedded into SIGNALview. TheTransportation Signals group, as well as remote users in the various district oces scatteredthroughout Toronto, have a convenient consolidated source for trac signal-related data.

CREATING THEIR OWN METHODS

Toronto continues to nd new ways to use SIGNALview software to meet their needs. The cityhas ve dierent groups of people that are using SIGNALview. Each group can see all of thedata, but the information they can modify is controlled by the group username and password.The SIGNALview Oracle database serves as a central source of trac signal-related informationfor both users and other software applications. A number of software applications extract viewsfrom the SIGNALview Oracle database to ensure that the same accurate and up-to-date data isused by all of the applications.